1781, I find the following entries. Of the
painters and subjects, Mr. Elmer and Mrs. Robinson belong to Surrey. The
rest supply the setting:--

"10. Thais--Sir Joshua Reynolds, R.A.--The face was painted from the
famous Emily Bertie ... It was a cruel _snouch_ in the Painter, a
fine Girl having paid him seventy-five guineas for an hour's work,
and being unable to pay for the other half of her portrait, to
exhibit her with such a sarcastic allusion to her private life--to
call her Thais--to put a torch in her hand, and direct her to set
flames to the temple of Chastity. Such rigorous punishment seldom is
inflicted by a rich man on a pretty woman, merely from her want of
money.

79. Damn'd bad.

106. Mrs. Mahon in the character of Elvira--J. Roberts.--Painting,
painted.

107. Portrait of Mrs. Robinson--J. Roberts.--At some distance the
effect nearly the same as the preceding number; but on closer
inspection, the colour not quite so thickly laid on. We must do
justice to the Exhibiting Artists by saying that there are no worse
_of their size_ in the room than these Dulcineas.

129. Brace of Pheasants--S. Elmer, A.--No artist can come nearer to
the object he attempts. His fish, his birds, and fruit are as
exquisitely fine as any of the Flemish masters."

The National Gallery lacks an Elmer: private collectors may be luckier.
Mr. J.E. Harting, to whom all Surrey naturalists owe a debt, reminds me
that many of Elmer's best pictures were engraved to illustrate Daniel's
_Rural Sports_, and that it was Elmer who painted the picture of the
hybrid between a blackcock and a pheasant which readers of _Selborne_
will remember was sent by Lord Stawell to Gilbert White. "It had been
found by the spaniels of one of his keepers in a coppice, and shot on
the wing."

[Illustration: _Frensham Pond._]

CHAPTER III

FRENSHAM AND TILFORD

A Surrey Labourer.--The Witch's Caldron.--Frensham Ponds.--The Last
of the Blackcock.--Herons and Waterlilies.--The Tilford
Oak.--Cobbett's Mistake.--Silver Billy.--The heroic age of
Cricketers.

Farnham has expanded to the south-east, and not prettily. But it is the
key to the great stretch of pine wood, heather and bogland which lies to
the south about Frensham, Tilford and Crooksbury Hill; and it is the
best centre from which to visit Waverley Abbey and Moor Park, and to
take long walks o